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Forum:Class Tier Lists
Prescript: I have not actually played mass effect 1 so I will not be able to make a tier list for that alone. This page will discuss how good each of Shepard's Classes are in mass 2 and mass 3 comparative to each other and 'buffs' and 'nerfs' that happened during the transition between the games. Later it may also begin to include a tier list for the mass 3 multiplayer Classes. Each list should be followed by a paragraph or so reasoning why the tier list is set up as so. How good a Class is depends largely on how it is played. However it can be widely agreed that some classes are better than others. n.b. Classes can share tiers Mass Effect 2 Shepard Classes: tier 1 (top) Sentinel tier 2 Infiltrator tier 3 Vanguard tier 4 Engineer Soldier Adept In Mass Effect 2, Powers are substantial. Sentinel rules the tier list because of Warp, Overload, and Tech Armor. This gives the sentinel a lot of power especially on lower difficulties while being very difficult to kill since Tech Armor restores shields to full. Infiltrator takes second for being able to cut down anything at range with the Widow and ammo powers while, in the worst case scenario, being able to retreat undetected. Vanguard sneaks in just behind on the back of Claymore and Biotic Charge. These two combined mean that you can restore a good chunk of shields on a whim and the Claymore's surprising effective range makes the Vanguard a powerful foe. The lack of 'ballistic Powers' will put a Vanguard at a disadvantage in places where enemies are at range and untrackable by Biotic Charge such as Mordin Solus's recruitment mission. The other classes are good but not great I found. Adept brings comprehensive set of crowd control powers and they seem to be tweaked for an anti collector role. Spamming Throw field with the biotic cooldown upgrade means you never have to worry about husks while Warp will help deal with anything that does not have shields. Things with shields however are common and quite sometimes must be faced pretty much single handedly. Engineer has a good compliment of attack powers, but Combat Drone is a bit lacking. Engineer suffers against Barriers making the Praetorian a hellish enemy to fight. Soldier is a capable fighter who can take anything but SMGs into a fight, however Concussive Shot does not compare to the offensive powers of other Classes and you will spend ages putting ammo powers on each weapon only to not use half of them. In a game balanced in the favour of Powers soldier just cant quite keep up. This will be worked on. Comments and suggestions are welcome. midnightpiranha Excellent Topic My ME2 Class rankings: Tier 1 Vanguard/Sentinel Tier 2 Adept Tier 3 Infiltrator/Engineer Tier 4 Soldier Luckily Ive played ME2 in the all the classes at some stage - the same can't be said about ME3 as I mentioned in another thread. As mentioned by the OP, powers are far more substantial in Mass Effect 2. However, so are the weapons. Hence, the two classes that combine both these skills to the greatest effect - Vanguards and Sentinels - are at a distinct advantage. Both classes benefited immensely from the introduction of Sub Machine guns, as they now had access to an automatic/fast-firing semi-automatic weapon for mid-range suppression. This was by far the greatest weakness of both classes in ME1. This is where the similarities end, but an overall parity remains between the two classes in their weaknesses and strengths. Biotic Charge was the best thing to ever happen to the Vanguard, which when combined with an excellent array of shotguns, could be applied to devastating effect. The Base powers of the Vanguard were effective, but often lacked punch - especially when it came to barriers and shields. However, access to the correct bonus power - in my opinion, Reave - resulted in a set of powers that could deal with any situation. The cherry on top for the Vanguard though, was the ability to acquire Assault Rifles on the Collector ship. You basically ended up with the firepower of a soldier combined with strong Biotic ability. The powers of the Sentinel were just as heavily altered as those of the Vanguard in the transition from ME1 to ME2, which was fantastic since Warp, Throw and Overload were indispensable when you had to deal with Mercs and Mechs on a regular basis. Tech armor was as useful as ever, and Cyro blast was an ingenious tech power. Most the Bonus powers available to the Sentinel were very useful, but Slam combined with Throw was one of my favourite combos. Although offensive firepower limitations were usually adequately supplemented by Tech and Biotic Powers, the lack of a close range offensive tool were lacking until the Collector Ship was boarded. A Sentinel with a Shotgun is a force to be reckoned with. The Adept needs little discussion - as excellent as ever, but requires a lot more dependence on your team-mates than the two top tier classes due to a lack of firepower Infiltrator and Engineer are only ranked so low due to my general dislike to how Stealth is employed in ME1 and ME2, and the fact that I think the Engineer is just a weaker Sentinel due to the lack of Biotic power. And the Soldier - major step down from the Soldier of ME1. Found the powers virtually useless, and due to the Collector Ship weapon acquisition bonus, the Soldier is no longer holds the massive edge he once had in having access to every weapon class. On that note, I will say that I actually disliked how in Mass Effect 3 every class could use every weapon. I think ME2 got the balance of class specific weapons right, as opposed to the draconian restrictions of ME1 and the surplus of choice in ME3. --An Ceannaire (talk) 21:51, July 20, 2012 (UTC) This is a very subjective matter, based on personal play styles. I'm not even sure I could compare the classes sensibly, since they play so differently. Based on my experiences on Insanity (rankings would be very different below Hardcore), a rough estimate would be: Top tier: Infiltrator Middle tier: Sentinel, Vanguard, Engineer, Soldier Bottom tier: Adept I'm singling out the Infiltrator as most powerful because once you have the Widow and a few sniper rifle upgrades, all the weaker enemies go down in a single head shot. As long as you are decent at getting head shots (and the Infiltrator time dilation works wonders for this), gameplay after this point is pretty much the same regardless of difficulty level. A level 30 Infiltrator also has enough skill points to max out all the useful skills and still put one point into AI Hacking, which was handy on most missions given the amount of mechs in the game. Most of the other classes play so differently from each other that comparison really isn't valid, though I think people undervalue the Engineer -- while an Engineer can't deal out damage as quickly as many other classes, I generally felt like I was in much better control of the battlefield as an Engineer than as the other classes, which warrants classing the Engineer at a similar overall power level to most of the others. I'm singling out the Adept as the weakest on Insanity because most of the Adept's powers are useless against enemies that still have protection, and the Adept doesn't have any innate skills that can strip away shields, the most common protection type in the game. For my Adept run on Insanity, I ended up using Energy Drain as my bonus power and playing like a weaker version of the Sentinel most of the time, which did not impress me. Diyartifact (talk) 22:49, July 20, 2012 (UTC) :Just a note: the above commentary is for ME2. I haven't yet played all the classes in ME3. Diyartifact (talk) 23:00, July 20, 2012 (UTC) {space for more people to put their mass 2 tier lists} Mass effect 3 tier 1 Vanguard Infiltrator tier 2 Engineer Adept tier 3 Sentinel tier 4 Soldier The most noticeable change from my ME2 tier list should be the relegation of Sentinel to the second lowest tier. The removal of shield effects of Tech Armor and the weakening of powers is to blame for this. My Sentinel class eventually took Defense Matrix as a bonus power and could tank almost anything while both defence buffs were active but this killed my cooldown times. Taking this to the extreme I packed as many weapons as I could onto the Sentinel and made him into what the Soldier should have been. Vanguard takes top spot with the addition of Nova to obliterate groups of enemies at close range and scope mods to improve their effectiveness at long ranges. The ease of biotic explosions in ME3 gave Adept the ability to jump the gap and make tier 2. Also the level 6 split upgrade for Throw and Pull made an already good crowd controller awesome. Infiltrator becomes a very capable combatant with heavy sniper rilfes like the Javelin and Widow and Black Widow. Javelin is an especially good rifle for an Infiltrator as their traits remove the need for most of the mods allowing you to focus on ammo capacity and stopping power. Fighting Kai Leng in Priority: Thessia was simple since headshots with the Widow and disruptor ammo and Tactical Cloak were almost certain to drain his shields. Engineer gains a tier or two on the back of level 6 Combat Drone and Sentry Turret being actually pretty powerful. Access to all weapon types helped all the above Classes from mission to mission, however for the Soldier, the trade off between cooldowns and weapon weight has caused the class to suffer. The addition of amplify on level 6 Concussive Shot and the introduction of more power combos has given Soldier a buff, but it is not always clear when Concussive Shot should be used to detonate them (indeed if amplify can detonate an effect placed by an ammo power). At least when all goes wrong with powers in ME3 you can just stack as many weapons as you have slots and leave attack powers to one side... just as well ammo powers have no cooldown now. Midnightpiranha